8. I knew that by transgressing thou wouldest transgress. By these words the Lord means that it is not without good reason that he so earnestly persuades and entreats the people to acknowledge that it was by him that they were chastised and afterwards delivered from so great distresses. The rebelliousness of that people might have prompted them to complain that it was useless to repeat this so often, and to press it on their attention. The Prophet replies, that men need not wonder at it, because he has to deal with obstinate men; and thus he confirms by different words what he said a little before about “the iron sinew of their neck.” (Ver. 4.) The meaning amounts to this, that the forwardness of that nation was well known to God, and that consequently he left nothing undone which was fitted to retain those who were attached to his service; and that, having received abundant evidence from undoubted proofs, they were so much the more inexcusable.
Therefore have I called thee a rebel from the womb. After having torn off the mask from this nation, which, as we formerly saw, falsely boasted of the name of Israel, he gives them a new name, and calls them “rebels.” By the “womb” I understand to be meant, not their first origin when they began to be reckoned a nation, but the time when they were delivered from the bondage of Egypt; for that deliverance might be regarded as a sort of nativity of the Church. (Exodus 12:51.) But the people, though they had experienced the infinite goodness of God, did not cease to act treacherously towards him, and transgressed more and more, so that he justly calls them “rebels and transgressors.”